Austria declares war on Serbia on July 28, 1914, launching a chain reaction. In a few short weeks, the world is at war, ultimately pitting the Triple Entente (France, Russia, and Britain) against the Central Powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary). In an effort to cut off French forces, Germany invades Luxembourg and Belgium in early August with the eventual goal of occupying Paris.

First Battle of the Marne (Pritzker Military Museum & Library)

During the First Battle of the Marne, from September 6 through 12, 1914, the French army and British Expeditionary Force successfully thwart German progress just east of Paris. A major turning point early in the war, by August 1914, the entire Allied army on the Western Front is forced into a general retreat back towards Paris as the German armies continue through France.

To weaken the British war effort, Germany seeks to cut off U.S. aid to Britain through naval warfare, at its height when the passenger liner RMS Lusitania sets sail from New York for Liverpool. German submarines torpedo and sink the ship on May 7, 1915, killing 1,198 people, including 128 Americans. Germany limits submarine warfare due to U.S. outrage over the incident. Seen at right, a Parliamentary Recruiting Committee poster portrays Justice emerging from the sea, as the Lusitania sinks in the background.

Verdun, France and Battle of the Somme (Pritzker Military Museum & Library)

A German offensive on the French town of Verdun from February 21 through December 18, 1916—the largest and longest battle on the Western Front between the German and French armies—results in nearly one million casualties. The Battle of the Somme—fought by the armies of the British Empire and France against the Germans—begins on July 1, 1916, with the launch of an Allied offensive, initiating the largest battle of the war on the Western Front.

Chicago Tribune, April 3, 1917; Chicago Daily News, 1918

In January 1917, a telegram from German foreign secretary Arthur Zimmermann to U.S. German ambassador Count Johann von Bernstorff—offering financial aid to Mexico if it agrees to partner with Germany on the U.S. entering the war—is intercepted by British intelligence and forwarded to President Woodrow Wilson. The story reaches the public on March 1, as Germany reinstitutes unrestricted submarine warfare. On April 6, 1917, the U.S. declares war on Germany.

American forces land in France on June 25, 1917, and African American troops are the first to arrive, including the 370th Infantry Regiment from Illinois (many from Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood).

The Second Battle of the Marne is fought on June 2, 1918, with American forces preventing Germans from crossing the Marne River at Château-Thierry.

Meuse-Argonne Offensive (Pritzker Military Museum & Library)

On September 26, 1918, Allied forces launch the Meuse-Argonne Offensive—part of the Hundred Days Offensive, the final series of Allied attacks—covering the entire Western Front between France, Belgium, and Germany. It is the largest and bloodiest attack of the war for the American Expeditionary Forces, involving over one million U.S. soldiers. The French map at the left illustrates the offensive and shows American daily lines of advance, divisions in lines, French colonial troops, enemy defenses, and railroads.

On November 11, 1918, Germany signs the Armistice of Compiègne. In accordance with the agreement, fighting ends at 11:00 a.m., Paris time, ending the war on the Western Front.

Ignace Paderewski and his wife Helena (Library of Congress)

Representatives from the Allied nations—including pianist Ignace Paderewski, newly appointed as prime minister of Poland—along with German authorities sign the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919, signifying the end of the war.

By 1916, the first wave of the Great Migration is fully underway, with nearly 1.5 million African Americans moving from the southern United States into the northern states, many settling in major cities, including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Saint Louis, and Detroit.

Stock and the Orchestra onstage at the Auditorium Theatre, April 24, 1917

Less than three weeks after the U.S. enters the war, second music director Frederick Stock leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s first performances of Gustav Mahler’s Eighth Symphony on April 24, 26, and 28, 1917, at the Auditorium Theatre as part of the Chicago Music Festival. The Orchestra is expanded to 150 players vocalists included six local choruses, two hundred boys from Oak Park and River Forest, and eight soloists. The Chicago Tribune called it “the most important event of its kind the West has ever known.”

Sixteen-year-old Jascha Heifetz debuts with the Orchestra on November 23, 1917, as soloist in Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto. Frederick Stock conducts.

On March 19, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson signs the Standard Time Act into law, implementing daylight saving time and authorizing the Interstate Commerce Commission to define time zones.

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A Time for Reflection—A Message of Peace—a companion exhibit curated by the Rosenthal Archives of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in collaboration with the Pritzker Military Museum & Library—will be on display in Symphony Center’s first-floor rotunda from October 2 through November 18, and the content also will be presented on CSO Sounds & Stories and the From the Archives blog.

Pierre Monteux made his debut at the Ravinia Festival on August 5, 1941, leading the Orchestra in Berlioz’s Overture to Benvenuto Cellini and Franck’s Symphony in D minor on the first half; after intermission, he changed the program order, leading with Clouds and Festivals from Debussy’s Nocturnes followed by Griffes’s The Pleasure-Dome of Kubla-Khan and Ravel’s Suite no. 2 from Daphnis and Chloe. That first residency also included music by Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Gluck, Milhaud, and Weber, along with songs and arias by Strauss and Wagner with soprano Helen Traubel.

The reviewer in the Chicago Daily News called Monteux “a revelation. Chicago knows no conductor like him. The Orchestra is delighted with him and he is, more than anything else, a sheer and unreserved delight.”

Monteux at the Ravinia Festival in August 1949 (image from the Victor Charbulak collection; Charbulak was a member of the Orchestra’s violin section from 1922 until 1967)

Over the next twenty years, he returned for every season except one (1958), conducting a vast array of repertoire. Monteux brought to the Orchestra his interpretations of works in whose world premieres he had participated, including Stravinsky’s The Firebird (as a violist under Gabriel Pierné) and Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe and Stravinsky’s Petrushka (as conductor), all with Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes.

The first concert of eighty-six-year-old Monteux’s 1961 residency on July 11 included Debussy’s Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun, a suite from Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, and Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. In the Chicago Tribune, Thomas Willis reported the Orchestra “played as it always seems to for Mr. Monteux, with flexibility born of affection, considerable vitality, and a limpid, clear tone quality.” For his final concert on July 15, he led Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto with Henryk Szeryng, along with Prokofiev and Sibelius’s first symphonies. That evening, Ravinia reported an audience of 7,514—the best attended concert of the season.